Friday, April 14, 2017

Gygax Interview in Drache #3 October 1984

Over on the Acaeum, a poster named stebehil has been collecting and documenting all of TSR's German D&D releases in a dedicated thread. Yesterday he posted a translation of a Gygax interview from the magazine Drache, issue 3, October 1984. Drache means Dragon in German so this was the mean to be the equivalent of Dragon magazine.The cover of this issue is shown above, and teases the Gygax interview ("Interview mit Gary Gygax") as well a short tournament D&D Module ("D&D Turnier Modul") for a single thief character (thanks to stebehil for clarification of this info).The wizard on the cover is very reminiscent of TSR's evil wizard Kelek (used in licensed products of the time and appearing in one episode of the D&D cartoon), particularly the color scheme and claw-like fingernails:

(Keep in mind that his answers were translated to German for the article and then back to English for this transcription, so some meaning may be garbled)From a Holmes Basic perspective, there's one mention referring to the design of B2, so I've added that to my page Gygax on B2.He also makes an offhand reference to an encounter that appears to be of a type he included in the Dungeon Geomorphs Set One: Basic Dungeons, which were included in the first three printings of Holmes Basic.In the interview Gygax says:"I also like it if you use tricks while designing a dungeon, like an illusion of a golden dragon over a basilisk, old men who are friendly the first time and deadly the second. These are fun things."Compare with Room 1 in the Geomorph sample encounters, which are transcribed here:1. A rudely furnished room with an old holy man (lawful/good) who has sworn a vow of silence. He will not fight if attacked. He takes only 2 hit points. There is a pottery flask containing his drinking water in one corner; a small container near his pallet has a handful of lentils (all of his food); there are some rags hanging from a nail in the wall, and a wooden begging bowl on a rough wooded table near the door holds 1 silver piece and 3 coppers. If he is impolitely treated or his room is searched he will do nothing, but he will never aid the offenders. If so much as a single copper piece is dropped in his bowl, he will make a holy sign which will add 1 hit point permanently to all party members. After doing the latter, he will disappear when the party leaves, and he will be replaced by 1A.a. An insane fiend conforming generally to the description of 1. above. He will say nothing until a party is in his abode, but will then attack with two hidden daggers. He takes 12 hit points, with an armor class equal to 5 due to his 18 dexterity. He has no treasure to begin with…Update:I did a Google Image search of the Drache cover from above, and found that it had previously appeared on the cover of "Warte Auf Das Letzte Jahr", 1981 German 1translation of the of 1966 Philip K. Dick novel, Now Wait for Last Year. Per the ISFDB, the cover artist is Oliviero Berni. As the Kelek action figure is from 1983, this earlier date for the artwork makes me wonder if the TSR Kelek was actually influenced by this picture rather than the other way around.